Delhi Daredevils

The World Cup is over after a scintillating tournament filled with high quality cricket action. As expected, the Indian team brought the magical smiles back on the faces of Indian cricket fans by winning the World Cup after a gap of 28 years.

But now, it's time for one of the most exciting leagues in the world to steal the show, the Indian Premier League. Everyone was speculating about the enthusiasm and reaction of audiences towards IPL after the long running World Cup. But, if we go by the first match of the 2011 edition, excitement, enthusiasm and quality of  the game have only improved. 

Here I will discuss the prospects of the team Delhi Daredevils in this edition of IPL. Semi finalists in the first two editions, Delhi couldn't even managed to make it to knock out stages in the last edition. 

After major shuffling of the team, largely due to the auction of players, many talented Indian players and renowned overseas players have left the team. Players like AB de Villiers, Dilshan, Collingwood and Dirk Nannes are enough to form a separate cricket team and with the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik and Rajat Bhatia gone; Delhi will surely miss the Indian talent.

This time, Delhi has tried to set up a team which is low profile except their captain Virender Sehwag. Let us look at their main players for this season.

Virender Sehwag

The ever charismatic Sehwag leads the pack for Daredevils. If a team name can ever completely signify the approach of a player, it is daredevil for Virender Sehwag.

He plays every form of cricket with a breathtaking pace. One of the most feared cricketers of his time, he would like to take Delhi all the way towards victory. Though he started the WC compaign with a bang, he would surely like to put behind the duck he scored in the WC finals and compensate it with scintillating stroke play in this season of IPL.

David Warner

One of the few specialist players of this format, Warner can sometimes score at a much faster rate than Sehwag. If both of them have a good day opening the innings together, Delhi can look for a score more than 200 in about every match.

Warner is young, energetic and an excellent fielder. He hits the cricket ball very hard and is one of the cleanest strikers of the ball in the T20 format.

Irfan Pathan

The most highlighted all rounder India has seen since Mr. Kapil Dev, Irfan is an excellent player to have in a team.

He is equally efficient in all the departments of the game. A mixture of talent and experience, he can be a role model for young players who want to fit into the role of future all rounder for team India.

Once most feared swing bowler in the world, Pathan has been out of the Indian National team for quite some time. But, in IPL for King's 11 Punjab, he did very well in the first three editions. Delhi will expect same from him this time too.

Morne Morkel

One of the spear heads of the South African bowling attack, this time Morkel is with the Daredevils as their main bowling star. One of the best pace bowler in the world at present with his fellow teammate Steyn, Morkel is quick and accurate.

He is tall and uses this characteristic to the best of his advantage. He has quite the experience bowling in Indian conditions, and would surely play an important role if Delhi travels far in this edition of the league.

James Hope

James Hopes is an evenly balanced Australian all rounder who can chip in at important stages in a game. Though he is not a regular member of the Australian national team, he has done very well in the domestic tournaments and will surely be one of the four overseas players to play in the Delhi team.

Aaron Finch

A solidly-built, aggressive batsman from the country town of Colac in south-west Victoria, Aaron Finch is one of the most exciting players and future prospect for International Cricket.

He was one of the top run getters in the Big Bash T20 league and had a very fruitful season with the Rajastan Royals. Delhi will need his aggressive intent for a better performance than last couple of years.

Colin Ingram

A blond, bestubbled, bruising left-hander nicknamed "Bozie," Ingram is among the brightest talents produced by the Eastern Cape in recent years. He features regularly in the South African national team and is very exciting prospect for them.  

He brings a bracing brand of aggression to opening the batting, and is one of the options for the opening slots for Daredevils.

Ajit Agarkar

Agarkar's entry into international cricket—with an avalanche of wickets that made him the then fastest to 50 in ODIs—was the only one of the few brighter side of his long career.

He has struggled to contain batsmen many a time and goes for plenty. But he could bat, because tailenders simply do not score half-centuries in 21 balls. His aggression is an asset, but the body cannot sometimes support it. One of the oldest players in this Daredevil's squad Agarkar will surely bring all his experience into play to support the team.

Naman Ojh

A capable top-order batsman and wicketkeeper, Ojha will surely be the first choice wicket keeper for the Delhi team in this edition. He has impressed everyone with his stint with the Rajastan Royals in previous seasons and Delhi will like to see his best this time around.

Andrew McDonald

Andrew McDonald is also a bowling all rounder from the up coming Australian set up. He is a quick bowler who can also prove to be a handy bat lower down the order. With his all rounder capability, he provides Delhi with a rich pool of all rounder players which are needed the most in this format of the game.

Roelof Van Der Merwe

A very tidy left arm spinner, Van Der Merwe will be the main spinner for the Delhi side in the spinner friendly conditions of the Indian pitches. He has played occasionally for the South African side and will look forward to make a mark for himself in the Delhi Daredevils team.

Venugopal Rao

One of the few technically sound batsman in the Indian domestic circuit, Venugopal Rao has been among the runs in the previous editions of the IPL for Deccan Chargers.

He started his domestic careers on high note, but hasn't fired after he got his break in the Indian national team. Nevertheless, he can still impress the selectors by performing well in this edition of the league.

Ashok Dind

India's search for a good fast bowler has brought Dinda on the international scene. A good medium pacer, Dinda was previously signed with Kolkata Knight Riders and did well there.

He would like to continue his good form with Daredevils as well and like to be called back to represent the Indian national cricket team.  

Having already qualified for the semifinals, the Mumbai Indians jolted the Delhi Daredevils' hope for reaching the same goal on Tuesday by handing them a 39-run loss in a crucial Indian Premier League cricket game. 

Batting first, MI gave the Daredevils a daunting target of 184 runs. Experimenting with its bench strength, MI picked Chandan Madan for the first time to begin the innings with Sachin Tendulkar.

Madan started off well with two boundaries in the first over. Mr. Inexplicable (Sachin) soon joined the party and scored 30 of 26 balls.

The discovery of the tournament, Saurabh Tiwary, knocked 38 of 28 balls with two sixes, but the day will be remembered for the amazing talent Kieron Pollard, who stole the limelight with his masterly knock of unbeaten 45 of just 13 balls with five massive sixes, and concluded the innings with 183 runs on the scoreboard.

David Warner and Virender Sehwag provided a flying start to the DDs, but no other batsmen could carry the momentum.

Notes

Sachin regained the spot for maximum run getter, pushing Jacques Kallis to the second spot.

This is the first time MI has reached the semifinals in three seasons.

DD needs to stop being consistently on the losing side as the forthcoming matches are going to be the knockout ones. This coming week will decide who are going to be the top four teams of the season.

By the way, defining Sachin as Mr. Inexplicable was quite easy for me, as whenever I think of him I usually run out of words. There is no word better for him than "inexplicable," as a whole dictionary could be invented to list all the adjectives suiting him.

Virender Sehwag smashed the Royals all over, as Delhi Daredevils continued their winning start to the 2010 IPL season.

Delhi won the toss and put the Royals into bat.

They started losing wickets regularly throughout their innings. Swapnil was the first one out for five.

Naman Ojha and Graeme Smith help with decent contributions of 24 and 18 respectively.

Hero from the first game Yusuf Pathan was out for zero.

Jhunjhunwala posted a half century and made a good partnership with Paras Dogra. before Dogra was out for 29.

Jhunjhunwara made 53, Dimi Mascarenhas made three and he was run out of the last ball of the innings.

Pick of the Dehli bowlers was Dirk Nannes, who again impressed, picked up 1-27 off his four overs

Rajastan Royals finished 141-6 off their 20 overs

Delhi lost early wickets to put them on the back foot. Captain Gautam Gambhir fell for nine and Sri Lanka's Tilakaratne Dilshan followed for zero both to Mascarenhas.

Sehwag at the other end was plastering the boweling all over Delhi.

AB De Villars added a bit of stability to the innings before he was caught off the bowling of Shane Warne for 15.

When Sehwag departed for a well made 75 off just 37 balls, it was left to Dinesh Karthik and Minhun Manhas to steer the Daredevils to victory.

The start of much-awaited third season of IPL is just around the corner.

While the T20 cricket league has returned to its home in India, and has also seen some changes like inclusion of many formerly ICL players and increase in number of venues, more innovations and enhancements will have to be made in coming years to increase the local franchise base and international fan base, to make the league even bigger.

IPL’s expansion to ten teams for 2011 season has already been approved. This can be considered a step forward, but the number of participating teams still is very low. There are many large cities which can host a franchise in turn paving the way toward building new or improving existing infrastructure and stadia in India.

Current number of only eight franchises is just too small a number to give much depth, competition and geographical spread to the league. As number of franchises increases, foreign talent will also spread across the teams more evenly.

Even if IPL expands further in future, say up to 20 teams, it will still be a small number as India is a geographically large country and has more than a billion passionate cricket followers. Such an enterprise will not be easy, but will have to be undertaken to establish larger home base, and current system will have to change, modify, adjust, expand and evolve in more ways than one.

Perhaps a system of regional conferences like that in US NBA and NFL leagues can serve as an example. A somewhat similar system is already in use in Ranji Trophy’s Super League and Plate League.

As India is large, IPL team number can be increased and then teams divided into, say, four regional conferences i.e. eastern, western, northern, and southern. From this base, one solution can be to give qualification to four conference champions for IPL semi-finals.

Another can be to take conference champions and runner-ups and play quarter-finals. Playoffs may also be used to determine second qualifier team instead of a conference runner-up. Double round-robin system can be employed as far as the semi-finals to make tournament more interesting.

Minor multi-tiered cricket regional or national T20 league system that could serve as feeders for IPL will have to be introduced to serve as youth development, team promotion and relegation medium. Match times can be tinkered with to attract foreign audience, especially in Europe and Africa. At present time slots of matches suit TV broadcasts primarily in Subcontinent, but not for Australia and New Zealand.

IPL has received criticism that it will harm national sides (and domestic leagues in other countries as well) because players will leave for bigger paycheck in India instead of representing the national sides (or playing in domestic leagues).

While that may have some substance (especially because money has traditionally been in national cricket), IPL might in some measure help national sides as well because players from small and poor countries, like Zimbabwe, will have a financial incentive to stick to the sport and improve their skills instead of staying behind the competition.

Conservatives and purists may baulk at the rampant advance of IPL, and possible reduction in number of international matches (especially tests), as domestic cricket leagues have historically never been big like other sporting leagues in North America and Europe.

But like it or not, this concept and this league is here to stay and grow exponentially in the years to come forcing international cricket to adjust its playing calendar accordingly.

The last few days have been pretty entertaining on the sports front. Jenson Button winning the F1 championship, Liverpool "ballooning" their way out of consideration for the Premier League title, Davydenko beating Nadal at the Shanghai Masters, etc

But one event shook the entire cricketing fraternity off its hinges. All the IPL teams failed to qualify for the semi final of the Champions League T20. AAAA, that high pitched scream can be heard in the background.

"How can you even talk about it?" screamed one. "You dare speak of it!" another angered fan said. The ousted IPL teams very much resemble Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter. With all the power and everything, they didn't have the souls to reach their goal.

The IPL teams obviously had the strongest teams on paper before the start. But papers can be torn, burnt, crumpled, eaten, stamped on, bitten off and the writings on it can easily be rubbed off or simply be torn into pieces.

Tournament organiser Lalit Modi will be biting his nails off thinking about the TRPs and sponsors. Five teams never heard of, Cape somethings, Trinidad, Tobago, Wales, and New Victoria have reached the semifinals of the tournament.

What does this mean?

Does it mean that the IPL teams are really bad or the other teams are really good? Either way, the IPL teams were, are and will never be as professional as the other leagues.

I finally gathered up the courage to watch Delhi take on the other guys. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I didn't know what time was it or which channel it was on and I didn't have the strength to check either.

Instead of the match, a County T20 match was being telecasted. Obviously, it was a repeat. I saw a batsman heave one six over long on and I was expecting a "DLF Maximum" shout from the commentator. But I didn't get that. I got a straight answer from him. "That is a huge six, mate."

Nothing to be impressed about? Ask a sane person to watch one IPL game after telling him all the rules and terms of cricket. He'll run a sword through you by the end of the game.

The IPL is all about the money. How much ever I try I just don't like the IPL. I'm a staunch supporter of the Mumbai Indians that too because of Sachin. After he retires, I have no idea what is going to happen because it seems cricket is heading to a club era where players will want to represent their clubs more than their countries. All this because of money. The thing that makes the world go round.

When you have the money, the passion disappears. If any of the other teams in this CL would be paying their players the same amount as the IPL players, this could've been a tournament to watch. 

The BCCI recently came up with a shocking statement saying that the players are playing for the money and nothing else. That is outrageous. It's not the players, rather its the board and the teams who are offering them this kind of money which allows them to sit back and relax.

How much ever heart they try to put into the game, there is always that money factor at the back of their minds.

Lalit Modi has changed the game, I would say, for the worse and I believe there is worse to come. By bringing in large amount of money, he has let the players relax but what is worse is that all this money is being concentrated in one area (i.e India).

Being Indian, I obviously want the best out of my country and expect the best performances on the field. This money-relaxation thing combined with the disgusting attitude of the board will make the Indian cricketers careless and money minded.

While in the current crop of players, not much change will occur, after a decade or so, India could be ranked among the associate teams and the Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup are good examples that this is already creeping in.

Indian cricket is headed the wrong way and if nothing is done in the next few months time, things could turn ugly. India vs Australia, hopefully, will bring change.

Well! Well! Well!

Delhi has proved itself again. Delhi Daredevils on Sunday defeated Wayamba Elevens by 50 runs and saved themselves from getting eliminated from the Champions League T20.

They have now booked their seats for the second round but are still on the waiting list. They may advance or they may not. But the chances are that they will advance.

The match was a very interesting match. The Wayamba Elevens lost the toss and were put in to field.

Their pacer Chanaka Welegedera made the Delhi opener Tilakaratne Dilshan struggle by bowling the first over maiden. But as we all know Sehwag never struggles, he hits out or gets out, and that's what happened. Sehwag hit a boundary as soon as he got his turn to bat. But unfortunately he didn't get much of a chance to show his magic. Why? Well because Tilakaratne Dilshan was keeping most of the strike and it became difficult for the Daredevils to score and gain momentum.

But in the fifth over Welegedera dismissed Dilshan and the Daredevils suffered a huge blow. But then finally Sehwag got the strike and he started smashing. Sehwag hit three fours to take the Daredevils 43/1 after 6 overs.

The Daredevils skipper Gautam Gambhir was batting with Sehwag. He was playing sensibly by giving the strike to Sehwag whenever possible. Sehwag was looking in good form and was smashing. But in the seventh over he too fell for just 3 and the mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis showed his magic. 

The Daredevils looked like they would soon crumble. But nothing was stopping Sehwag from smashing, not even Ajantha Mendis, he smashed all over and the scoreboard kept ticking. The Wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik also smashed and both these players were in good touch. 

The 67 run partnership between Sehewag and Karthik finally came to an end in the 15 over when Sehwag was run out due to a misunderstanding between him and his partner.

But Karthik wasn't out and he smashed all over. Delhi was in a good position and it was looking as if Delhi would easily get to a total of 140-150.

But Karthik wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted more runs and he smashed the mystery spinner Mendis for 3 consecutive sixes in the first 3 balls of the nineteenth over. on the fourth ball he took a double and on the fifth ball, which was a wide he attempted a pull shot and was stumped. Delhi were 158/4 after 19 overs.

Then in the last over Owais Shah hit a six of Welegedera and then got out. But then the two new men on the crease took singles and doubles to take the score to  170/5.

All the Wayamba bowlers were too expensive escept for Welegedera who bowled 4 overs, gave away 24 runs and took 2 wickets.

The Wayamba Elevens were off a better start than the Daredevils but the lost too many wickets. Their wickets tumbled at regular intervals and most of their batsmen got out in single figures.

Mahela Jayawardene played a slow but good innings of 52 to save his team from getting all out.

In the end the Wayamba Elevens reached to a score of 120/7 in 20 overs and lost the match.

Most of the Delhi bowlers were economic and their pacer Dirk Nannes took 4/24 in his 4 overs.

Virender Sehwag was named the Man of the Match for his brilliant 66 from 42 balls. When he was asked that, if he discussed his run out with Dinesh Karthik, he answered that he hadn't and he wouldn't beacuse it was a part of the game.   

The Delhi Daredevils sealed a dramatic comeback victory against the Deccan Chargers, remain top of the 2009 IPL standings.

Delhi have been tipped by man to go all the way in this years event, but it looked for much of the match as though it would be that Hyderabad based franchise that would emerge victorious and therefore top the table.

The Daredevils looked set to post a total of around 160, due to some accurate bowling from the Chargers. But Dinesh Karthick smashed the last over of the Daredevils, innings bowled by the Sri Lankan left arm bowler for 23 runs, to propel the Daredevils to an imposing total of 173.

Adam Gilchrist gave the Chargers the perfect start to their reply, taking 18 runs off the first over bowled by Ashish Nehra with three exquisitely time cover drives, even though two wickets feel at the other end, Gilchrist continued his onslaught and reached his half century in the eight over of the innings, the Chargers were 83-2 after 10 overs and seemed on course for a comfortable victory.

As has so often been the case in this years, tournament a wicket was lost in the first over after the strategy break and unfortunately for the Chargers it was the crucial wicket of their skipper Gilchrist for a brilliantly made 61. The opening batsman inside edged a ball from the young Pradeep Sangwan and lost his off pole.

Andrew Symmonds replaced Gilchrist at the wicket, and he was straight away into his stride smashing two sixes over midwicket, and two fours over point, Symmonds reached 40 in double quick time, and with 25 runs needed from 20 ball with 6 wickets in hand the Chargers were cruising home.

However just as the match appeared to be over, Raja Bhatia came on and bowled Symmonds who was playing down the wrong line, and then two balls later, he did the same to Dwayne Smith, who has been one of the most explosive batsmen of the tournament.

This threw the game wide open, but the Chargers were never able to recover from that double, blow, and in the end Bhatia picked up four wickets and the Daredevils emerged victorious by 12 runs.

This victory will give Delhi further belief that 2009 will be the year that they lift the IPL trophy, after all they seemed dead and buried with just three overs left tin the contest.

As for Deccan, it is the second time in a week that they have managed to lose a game from a seemingly unassailable position they still have a great chabce of qualifying for the Semis but they will need to re group quickly if they are to make the last four of this lucrative event.

Delhi Daredevils vs. Kings XI Punjab - 12.30 - April 19

The two losing teams in the semi-finals of IPL 2008 go head-to-head for what will be a spectacle of some proportion. Will it be Virender Sehwag’s Delhi Daredevils, or Yuvraj Singh’s Kings XI Punjab that will rise victorious come Sunday?

The Daredevils enter this year’s tournament as a favourite for many bookmakers, and will look at impressing on their first outing in South Africa.

Their captain Sehwag, holds the record for the best strike rate in IPL 2008 (184.54), and will look to come out firing in their opening game.

He’ll be joined at the top of the order by in-form batsmen Gautam Gambhir, and supported in the middle order by Owais Shah and AB de Villiers.

AB de Villiers will look to impress the Newlands crowd again, as he did with the bat against the Australians in the recent test match and one-day international.

De Villiers has yet to impress in the shortest format of the game with an average of only 16, but his recent form should bid him well in Sunday’s encounter.

The Kings XI Punjab inexperienced bowling attack will have a tough time restricting the Daredevils, if they try to defend a score on Sunday. Irfan Pathan will have to be in top form to restrict the run rate, with his seaming middle pacers.

Sunday should see the IPL debut of recent South African 20-20 debutant, left-arm pace man Yusuf Abdullah. Abdullah, who’ll be spearheading the Kings XI Punjab bowling attack. He impressed in his debut against Australia, as he claimed the scalp of Ricky Ponting in his first over, and kept a tidy economy of 5.33 per over.

The danger men in the batting department for the Kings XI will be skipper Yuvraj Singh and Simon Katich. In their encounter with the Daredevils in IPL 2008, Katich top scored with 75 in 52 balls, and Yuvraj added a handy 40 in 29 balls.

They’ll be supported in the middle order by Sri Lankans Mehayla Jaywardene and Kumar Sangakkara; and Australian Luke Pomersbach, who finished in the top 10 run scorers for the IPL 2008.

They’ll look to be removed from the crease by the experienced Daredevils bowling attack, consisting of Glenn McGrath, Daniel Vettori and Amit Mishra.

IPL 2008 Results:

Match 1: Kings XI Punjab won by 4 wickets (with 3 balls remaining)

Match 2: Kings XI Punjab won by 6 runs (D/L method)

It’s a tough game to call, as even though history supports the Kings XI Punjab, the result could go either way.

If the Kings XI win the toss and bowl first, I think they’ll have a favourable chance of chasing, with the strength in their batting line-up.

But if they bat first, their inexperienced bowling line-up could be too weak to tame the likes of Sehwag and company in an average score run chase.

Result: Delhi Daredevils to beat The Kings XI Punjab

The Indian Premier League,  it’s loud, cheesy, brassy, and very Bollywood, but it’s also a lot of fun...dammit. Try as I might, I just can’t quite bring myself to hate the IPL or Twenty20 cricket in general.

As a traditionalist, I know that it’s bad for the real game, test cricket, but it’s a guilty pleasure. It's the extra scoop of ice cream that your doctor tells you is blocking your arteries. It’s a diversion, just enough to whet the appetite between real games.

As much as it annoys me, I strongly suspect that if there is a form of the glorious game of cricket that will capture the hearts and minds of those in non-cricket nations, then it just might be T20. Hell, it’s even short enough and loud enough to keep the attention of the Fisher-Price generation.

Make no mistake, T20 is an abomination, a game created for the sole reason of making money; and lots of it. Despite that, it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t been successful and it has raked in some serious dollars. Better than that, it gets bums on seats, and that adds to the carnival atmosphere of the game.

So, if T20 is the game, then the IPL may just be the vehicle to do the job. It has the financial backing to take it as far as it needs to go and all it really needs is marketing and the desire to break in to new territories.

Even better, the I in IPL has become somewhat irrelevant thanks to the scheduling conflict with the Indian elections. So why don’t we just change the I for India to I for International to create the International Premier League.

Instead of sticking to the Indian franchises, why not move to cities around the globe. We could still have the Delhi Daredevils, but we could also have the Beijing Walls, the New York Liberty, the London Queens, the Barcelona Bullfighters or the Brazilian Waxes (yes, I know Brazil isn’t a city, but I couldn’t resist)

If the whole IPL can be moved to South Africa in a matter of a few weeks, why not take it to the world? Why not share the joy with the entire planet? Who knows, once they understand this simple little game, the might even develop a taste for the real one. We live in hope.

As the IPL season draws closer, it becomes more and more important to take a look at the teams. So I decided to start with the Delhi Daredevils (DD).

Though my favourite team is Bangalore, basically because of Rahul Dravid, I love the way Delhi played during the previous season.

They have also have best bowling attack to boast about with Glenn McGrath, Farveez Mahroof, Daniel Vettori, Amit Sharma, Pradeep Sangwan, etc.

Their batting is no less great with Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, AB De Villiers,Tilakaratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik, Manoj Tiwary, etc.

So, let's look at their top strengths and top problems:

Strengths

1. These guys have the right attitude as well. All the players are aggressive or assertive. Many of them are in form as well.

2. They also have a brilliant opening combination in Sehwag and Gambhir, which has a lot of experience together and gels well.

3. In McGrath and Vettori, they have two absolute misers. Both of them have an economy rate of under 7. This means that, if both play, they will have have about 40 percent (8 overs) of their fielding innings going at a very meagre run rate.

Weaknesses

1. After the transfer of Shikhar Dhawan, the team's No. 3 batsman last season, the openers will face a lot pressure. Last season, one of the main reasons why the team lost was that the batsmen after Dhawan were highly inconsistent. Though this season most of the players are in form, this is something to be careful about.

2. Mohommad Asif was another reason for their success, but he is banned for this season for reasons we all know. This means Mahroof will take the new ball. He is good, but often inconsistent. Also with McGrath not having played since last year's tournament, it would be tough to expect him to be at his best. So, their bowling might end up just getting thwacked around.

3.  The team's local players are not people who have been the backbone of the team's success, with the exception of Dhawan. Even Amit Mishra didn't do anything great, other than that hat trick, which came in the last over of that match and with the odds of winning being in the DD's favour.

So, overall, this is a team which will be a suprise package in both cases, if it does badly or it does well. This is a team which would be difficult to predict.